1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a voice edit technique of editing voice information and particularly, to a voice edit technique of enabling an edit work of voice information to be performed in short time by enabling a quick indication of an edit target portion of the voice information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Edit of voice information such as rearrangement of voice information and deletion of voice information has been generally carried out by using a magnetic tape. However, there is a disadvantage that the edition using the magnetic tape needs a long time to access an edit target portion because the magnetic tape is a sequential access recording medium. In order to solve this disadvantage, it has been hitherto proposed to use a directly-accessible magnetic disc or optical disc as a recording medium (for example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. Hei-4-19874 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. Hei-4-212767).
If voice information is recorded on a directly-accessible recording medium such as a magnetic disc or the like, an edit target portion can be accessed in short time by indicating an address. However, in order to enable an access to the edit target portion on the basis of the address indication, it is required that a recording content is reproduced before the edition to check which voice information is recorded at each address of a recording medium and record the check result. Therefore, much time and much labor are needed for this preparation work.
Also, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. Hei-7-160289 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. Hei-7-226931 disclose a technique of recording voice information and text information in association with each other, however, never disclose a technique of editing voice information by editing text information.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to enable an edit of voice information to be performed in short time without any cumbersome preparation work by converting a voice input in a voice input operation to voice information and text information, recording both the voice information and the text information in association with each other, and enabling the voice information to be edited by merely editing the text information when the voice information is edited.
In order to attain the above object, a voice editing device according to the present invention comprises: a voice input device for inputting voices; a voice information storage unit for storing voice information; a text information storage unit for storing text information associated with the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit; a voice/text association information storage unit for storing voice/text association information indicating the corresponding relationship between the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit and the text information stored in the text information storage unit; voice information/text information-converting means for generating the voice information and the text information corresponding to the voices input from the voice input device and storing the voice information and the text information thus generated into the voice information storage unit and the text information storage unit, respectively, and storing into the voice/text association information storage unit the voice/text association information indicating the corresponding relationship between the voice information and the text information stored in the voice information storage unit and the text information storage unit, respectively; a display device for display a text; an input device for indicating an edit target portion on the text displayed on the display device according to a user""s operation, and inputting an edit type; display control means for displaying the text on the display device according to the text information stored in the text information storage unit, and outputting a text edit target portion information which corresponds to the edit target portion designated on the text and indicates the text information stored in the text information storage unit; and editing means for editing the content of the text information storage unit on the basis of the text edit target portion information output from the display control means and the edit type input from the input device, obtaining, on the basis of the text edit target portion information and the voice/text association information, a voice edit target portion which corresponds to the edit target portion indicated on the text and indicates the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit, and editing the content of the voice information storage unit on the basis of the voice edit target portion information and the edit type input from the input device.
In this construction, when a user indicates an edit target portion of voice information on a text, the display control means outputs the text edit target portion information, and the editing means obtains, on the basis of the text edit target portion information and the content of the voice/text association information storage unit, the voice edit target portion information which corresponds to the edit target portion indicated on the text and indicates the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit, and edits the content of the voice information storage unit on the basis of the voice edit target portion information and the edit type input from the input device.
In order to facilitate the correction of the voice information, in the above voice edit device of the present invention, when the edit type input from the input device is xe2x80x9ccorrectionxe2x80x9d, the editing means outputs to the voice information/text information-converting means a correcting instruction which contains a text edit target portion information indicating the text information stored in the text information storage unit and a voice edit target portion information indicating the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit, which correspond to the edit target portion indicated on the text, and when the correcting instruction is applied from the editing means, the voice information/text information-converting means corrects the content of the text information storage unit on the basis of the text edit target portion information contained in the correcting instruction and the text information corresponding to the voice input from the voice input device, and corrects the content of the voice information storage unit on the basis of the voice edit target portion information contained in the correcting instruction and the voice information corresponding to the voice input from the voice input device.
In this construction, the editing means outputs to the voice information/text information-converting means the correcting instruction which contains the text edit target portion information indicating the text information stored in the text information storage unit and the voice edit target portion information indicating the voice information stored in the voice information storage unit, which correspond to the edit target portion indicated on the text. Further, when the correcting instruction is applied from the editing means, the voice information/text information-converting means corrects the content of the text information storage unit on the basis of the text edit target portion information contained in the correcting instruction and the text information corresponding to the voice input from the voice input device, and corrects the content of the voice information storage unit on the basis of the voice edit target portion information contained in the correcting instruction and the voice information corresponding to the voice input from the voice input device.
Further, in order to enable a quick access to a portion which the user wishes to reproduce, in the voice edit device of the present invention, the input device indicates a reproduction target portion on text displayed on the display device and inputs a reproduction instruction, the display control means outputs reproduction target portion information indicating text information stored in the text information storage unit, which corresponds to the reproduction target portion indicated on the text, and the voice edit device further includes reproducing means for obtaining, on the basis of the reproduction target portion information output from the display control means and the voice/text association information, voice information which is stored in the voice information storage unit and corresponds to the reproduction target portion indicated on the text when the reproduction instruction is input from the input device, and then reproducing the voice information thus obtained.
In the above construction, when a user indicates the reproduction target portion on the text displayed on the display device by using the input device, the display control means outputs the reproduction target portion information which corresponds to the reproduction target portion indicated on the text and indicates the text information stored in the text information storage unit, and on the basis of the reproduction target portion information output from the display control means and the voice/text association information, the reproducing means obtains the voice information which corresponds to the reproduction target portion indicated on the text and is stored in the voice information storage unit, and then reproduces the voice information thus obtained.